Frozen Smoke
by Lazy Cakes
Summary: Hiccup hates Jack. Jack does not understand why.
1. Chapter 1

"Remind me, again, why we're out here?"

"You know better than I; it was your call."

"I thought it was a false alarm from the moment I heard it."

"Then why drag me out here?"

"To irritate you, of course."

"You're such a child."

"Coming from who?"

Jack didn't respond. He held his hands up to his lips and blew warm air over them. He hated the cold, and Hiccup knew that, which was why he chose the officer to accompany him on a territory check. Given, his life would be much easier if the breach supervisor had just let Jack quip at him, but he had always been known to have the last laugh. Spite was his weakness, it would seem. So there they were, at the cliff marking the northernmost edge of the Guardian's territory. An alarm had shot through the main base not half an hour ago, shrill and angry and alerting a perimeter breach at the very spot Hiccup now stood. Seeing how it was a cliff, he really had suspected that it was a result of faulty wiring or something of a similar caliber. Ever since the Vikings had joined the Guardians, both clans trying desperately to survive the new world utter destruction had thrust them into, there was little threat. Hiccup brought his cigarette up to his lips and drew a long breath, narrowing his eyes over the half-frozen expanse. Next to him, Jack stiffened his back until it was ramrod straight. The Guardians didn't approve of smoking, or really of natural fire at all.

They found happiness in peaceful, refined organization, and came from all over, joined by their love for raising the many infants that had been abandoned in the Aftermath.

Vikings,on the other hand, named for their Nordic roots, were loud and boisterous, bonding through wrestling and drinking and singing. They had been a broken group of nomads, however, when they stumbled into the Guardian's territory.

Hiccup remembered it like it was yesterday; Bunny had found them. Or rather, they had found Bunny.  
At first, they thought they had only stumbled across a single family. A man was seated on a fallen log in the middle of a field of still-green wheat, seemingly resting after felling the tree while young children danced and climbed around him, up the roots of the tree. One little girl clambered up to the highest point of the roots and saw them. Hiccup couldn't imagine what she must have seen; each of the children in the family was clad in light colors of clean cotton, and she was staring at a huge mass of people with leather and furs strapped to them, covered in dirt and dust from traveling. She'd screamed, and in an instant all the other children disappeared. Each one of them was already expertly trained, it seemed. The man had stood, a huge man tall enough to rival even Hiccup's father, the blood chief of his group. He was much thinner, but his body was built in a way that utilized each muscle group to survive, and his hair and features were long like his body. Though he was younger, his hair was gray and black, and his own cotton clothes strained over his frame, tattoos visible from even a far distance. Another figure, a very young man, appeared, seeming to float over the log without his feet touching it, jumping smoothly and gracefully up to where the little girl still stood, drawing a long, stafflike weapon as his other hand swept the daughter behind his legs. Like who the Vikings first assumed to be his mate, he had a young face and an old man's hair, white and soft and stuck up to one side; constant bed head. Of course, Hiccup now knew that his name was Jack, the other man Bunny, as named by the children, and that there were no biological children to anyone in the clan, but each was a daughter or son to each caretaker. Jack was much smaller than Bunny, but his body was similarly structured. Though, again, none of the Guardians were related, each followed a strict routine that gave them all a somehow similar body shape. The Vikings were all shapes and sizes, the bigger the better, so Hiccup was always before a black sheep; he was scrawny in youth, lanky and lacking in incredible physical strength. Nobody treated him like they treated others.

But in that moment, none of them were strong. They were hunched and half-starving, and could hardly see anything definitive about the people they'd encountered. The sun was behind the young man, washing him in an angelic light, and Hiccup wasn't convinced they hadn't stumbled upon some kind of heaven.  
"Send forth your leader!" Jack called, voice unreadable. Stoick stepped forward, and Hiccup watched the other man recoil slightly.  
"I offer my apologies. We mean no harm."  
Hiccup watched in utter shock as his father knelt before the family. He had never seen him so desperate. The man jumped lithely from the tree to the ground, burying himself to the hips in wheat. He was shorter than even Hiccup. Bunny seemed to be nearly twice the man's height, having yet to speak as he lifted the little girl to his chest. She stared at the new people, and more children slowly became visible, clinging to the tall man. Jack moved forward through the swishing plants, scrutinizing each broken warrior.  
"We are merely passing through, we mean no harm to your family, please, I-"  
"-You are a clan, correct?" The man interrupted, close enough to be able to speak normally but far enough away that neither could attack. Stoick looked up from the ground upon being interrupted.  
"Clan?"  
"Yes. A large group not bound by direct blood?"  
"Oh! Aye, aye, we are."  
"Have you a name?" It was clear that common was not the man's first language; his grammar seemed to falter and his accent was graceful, the harsh consonants seeming to flow unnaturally from his throat.  
"Eh..."  
"We are Guardians. Need you help?"

The inversion with which he asked questions was confusing, but what room had Hiccup to criticize? With Norse as his own first language, common's pronunciation came easier to him, but his grammar was terrible.  
"Yes...yes, we need help. Please. Our lands were pulled under water. We have no rest."

The man shifted his weight onto one hip and swung his staff over his shoulder, lips parted slightly and eyes squinted slightly.  
"Abandon your weapons here. I will bring you to where you need be." He turned and called something to the group behind him, a single word in a language Hiccup did not recognize. He later learned that it meant 'Bunny', and the man strode to stand at the other's side. The children all bustled forward, their hands clinging to their parent's legs for comfort.  
"You heard him!" Stoick called in Norse, dropping his weapons. His people stared in shock. Never had they been so desperate. At the decree of their leader, reluctantly, they discarded blade after blade, blunt after blunt, and gun after gun. Soon, there was a mound of weapons in the field of wheat, the small group of people watching unreadably. Hiccup felt his knife pressing into the small of his back, but didn't take it out. He couldn't feel safe completely unguarded. He dropped his eyes to his prosthetic foot.

That had been a little less than a year ago, and somehow he had come to despise the teen who had saved his people, the teen he was now standing next to, watching him gaze out over the frozen landscape. He was actually older than Jack, and somewhat larger, but Jack didn't seem to age much at all anyway. One thing could be said about him; he laughed freely. Often, at Hiccup. He remembered the look on his face when the Vikings were assimilated into the Guardian's group, and when Hiccup was given a ranking higher than Jack. It made him feel a tight knot in his stomach that he could only describe as mirth, relishing in how upset Jack seemed to be. He took every opportunity to rub it in, too, dragging the teen around on every excursion. He should've felt ashamed at how he loved to get in Jack's face, watch him twitch as he fought to keep it clear of expression. Except now Jack seemed to have lost control of his brooding anger, bundled up under layer after layer of thickly woven cotton. His shoulders were pulled up, arms crossed and legs pressed together. His breaths came out in puffs as thick as Hiccup's smoke, the only part of his face visible his eyes, blue and clear as moonlight. Which was coming quickly, as the sun already had passed the middle of the sky.  
"I hate the cold."

Jack muttered.

"I hate you."

Hiccup responded nonchalantly, taking a slow draw from his cigarette. He felt Jack's eyes burning into the side of his head as he stared at the river spanning out from under the cliff. Aware of the very near edge of said cliff, Hiccup leaned back as he exhaled.  
"Sir, there is no danger here. It is-"  
"-Sir? I'm surprised you even know how to show partial respect." Hiccup tilted his head, watching Jack's jaw tighten even under his scarf. Icy wind began to blow as Hiccup brought his smoke to his lips again.  
"There's no need to be like this." Jack continued to stare over the partially frozen expanse below, upsetting Hiccup unimaginably. How dare he not look at him, or at the ground in submission? After how he had forced Stoick to kneel before he even offered help? The fact that his father had knelt on his own chased itself out of Hiccup's mind as he turned to face Jack, stepping until Jack would've had to look up to match his eyes. Still, he stared right ahead, which was now at the peeling paint on Hiccup's leather coat.  
"Need to be like what? Hm? Like a person who outranks you?"  
"There is no level to the rank of a Guardian. Your people accepted this wh-ghk-"

Hiccup had grabbed Jack's throat suddenly. Not enough to restrict breathing at all, but just to have his fingers on his neck. Jack's reaction was...was it beautiful? His eyes went wide and his cheeks flushed, chasing away the pale color beneath. The muscles of his throat flexed and he leaned his head back just barely, pulling them taut. Hiccup's breath caught in his throat, too.

He took another draw of his cigarette so he wouldn't have to think about...whatever he was thinking about.  
"You are here as a guest." Jack managed to splutter out. Hiccup blew his smoke into the younger man's face, livid. He couldn't explain why he was possibly so upset. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.  
He didn't realize he was tightening his grip until Jack closed his eyes, and a tear ran down his face. Numbly, Hiccup let go. Jack slumped forward and Hiccup dodged. He hit his knees, teetering dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. He didn't try to stand.  
"If I did something, I'm sorry." No, he hadn't done anything. Hiccup wasn't sure why he treated Jack the way he did; he hadn't ever had so much power over someone before. Someone who wasn't afraid of him. He hated that he didn't fear him like he should, but all he had ever wanted was in someone unafraid.  
"I'm sorry if I've upset you, but you can't treat me like this. You can't treat anyone like this." Jack continued as he tried to stand, still struggling to breathe.  
"Who are you to say what I can and can't do?"  
"Your superior."  
"I outrank you, you brat!"  
"Diplomacy outranks everything."  
"Not violence."  
"Would you really fight me?"

Jack finally managed to stand and Hiccup practically dashed him, unsure of what he was about to do. The snow ached under their weight, but Hiccup ignored it. He flicked his cigarette at Jack, who dodged. In the next moment, Hiccup's feet caved under him, Jack grabbed his arm, and they plummeted into the icy river below.


	2. Chapter 2

At least he had something to hold onto, Hiccup thought as he fell and as his skin collided with frozen water. Not so great that it was living and moving and heavy, or that it was holding onto him, but someone was better than nothing. Jack seemed to know what he was doing as they were dragged by the powerful current. He was incredibly forceful, grabbing Hiccup's wrists and crossing them over his body, pulling Hiccup's back to his chest, and pushing them up so their heads were at least above the water. Jack had them positioned so they were being forced backwards. He didn't seem to be able to turn them around or get to a bank, and Hiccup couldn't get enough breath to give him hell for it. He had to trust that Jack could get them out of this.

That didn't stop him from screaming, though. He kicked his legs and shrieked and tried to wrestle his hands free from Jack's. For once, he wasn't actually trying to make it harder for the guardian, but he certainly wasn't making it easier. Jack was shouting something, over and over, in his native language. His feet were pushed up and he was trying to align his boots under Hiccup's to force his up, too. Hiccup had never learned how to swim. He didn't know that Jack was trying to keep his head above the water. All he knew was that Jack was shouting,  
"Arrêtez! Arrêtez!" Over and over. Very suddenly, they stopped moving. Jack stopped screaming. They started moving again. Hiccup craned his neck. They must've run into a rock. Hiccup wasn't sure. He tried to throw Jack off of him, twisting around. His own head collided with something hard above the roar of the water, and he fell to the depths.

Jack broke the surface of the water with a spewing cry. His hands were, thankfully, practically frozen around Hiccup's wrists, and he managed to drag the unmoving man to a gravelly bank. It took no small amount of effort to get them both out of the water, constantly surveying for other dangers.

Jack knew what cold water did to a person, but more importantly, he knew how to survive it. He stripped off layer after layer, no time to fold or even be sure where the scarves and hat and jackets were falling. Naked from the waist up, he pulled Hiccup to lean against an outcropping of stone and began to pull at his jacket with fumbling fingers. Hiccup's head lolled and jerked up as he regained consciousness. Relieved though he was, Jack didn't pause, pulling his jacket off and adding it to the pile. He was pulling Hiccup's sweater off before the man was capable of moving. He slapped Jack off him, hard, and Jack gave himself hardly a moment to register before he was up again, now barking out instructions.  
"Get them off, wet clothes will kill you faster than nothing at all."  
"Why the hell should I-"  
"-Do you want your punk ass to survive?! Strip or die, Hiccup!" He stood up and walked away, pulling the already frozen solid clothes under his arm as he looked around them, trying to get his bearings. His communicator was destroyed by water, no doubt. They seemed to have washed up on the edge of a pine forest on the opposite side of the river, at least four or five kilometers south of where the Guardians' protection ended. He'd only been this way once, though, so he couldn't be certain. Hiccup was cursing him out as he stood, but he seemed to be listening at least partially, pulling his clothes off so he could throw them at Jack. He froze in his movements when the shorter man whipped about to face him, intensely upset. He made quick, dangerous steps towards Hiccup and he scrambled backwards until there was no place else to go. Jack threw the clothes aside. Hiccup's back scraped a tree, so cold he couldn't feel it. There was blood in Jack's white hair, running with the water down his neck, pooling in his collarbone before dripping across his side. His dark brows were pulled low and deep against his eyes, and he was staring up at Hiccup, the toes of his boots touching Hiccup's.  
And he wrapped his arms around him.

He hugged him.

"What do you think you're-"  
"-In this temperature the only heat we can get is from one another. Both of us have hypothermia; we'll soon die with or without a fire." Jack reached his hands up and rubbed life into Hiccup's ears with surprising gentility, kneading the skin with his thumbs. He was frigid, of course, but much warmer than their surroundings.  
"Put your arms around my shoulders. Don't let my ears freeze." Jack commanded, and startled, Hiccup complied. He dropped his hands down over Jack's shoulder blades and closed his eyes, trying to enjoy the contact of someone's hands at the sides of his head and trying to ignore the context. Jack was still talking, planning, shivering. He seemed so skewed that some of his words were in his native language.  
"Nous- _we_ , we need to build a fire and some kind of shelter before anything else, est-ce que vous- _do_ , do you still have your lighter, matches, anything?"  
"It all got soaked, what do you think water does?"  
"Kills us if you keep up that kind of attitude! Do you have it or not?"  
"I-I've still got a lighter."  
"Then it's up to you to start a fire. Your lighter can still give you a spark, fuel or no, and this pine has good sap. It won't be too difficult." Jack withdrew his arms and fluffed his fingers through Hiccup's hair, pulling out ice.  
"Your hair's longer than mine. Normally it would keep your head warmer, mais- _but_ , but now it'll freeze to your head. Keep running your hands through it, pull out the ice often."  
"Don't tell me what to do!"  
"Don't listen if you would rather die. I have no qualms in letting you fall, but I am going to survive." Jack pulled away and Hiccup's skin cried out at the loss of warmth. He pulled a long, thin blade from somewhere along his leg, running his hand down the flattened edge. He drew it away, bloody.  
"Still sharp." He murmured to himself with a nod, seemingly undeterred by the wounds he inflicted. He flopped to the ground near their clothes and peeled off his boots. His socks followed, thrown onto the pile. With the same gentility as he'd had with Hiccup, Jack tried to rub warmth into his feet, pain etched into his normally placid face. Hiccup still had not moved.

"You…"

"What?"

"Did you push me off the cliff, or try to stop me from falling?"

Jack stopped moving and looked up. His expression became again unreadable.

"What do you think?"

He stood again, taking his blade in his other hand and circling a tree, scrutinizing it with the same expression he used to look at Hiccup, and all the Vikings, with. His eyes were squinted just barely and his mouth was open just enough to see his front teeth, white and polished like sharp, smart pearls. Already, bruises were beginning to form, purplish-black lichen flowering over smooth marble. He had one against his jawbone, spanning down his arm, and at the very center of his back, making it painfully easy to see his ribs and spine. There were more on his legs, but Hiccup wanted to avoid checking. Hiccup followed Jack to the tree, trying to cling to some level of superiority but not wanting to push Jack so much that he would abandon him. He was suddenly very dependent on Jack, and Jack knew it, too, which burned curiosity into Hiccup. Why did he have yet to address that?

Hiccup had addressed it right away.

It was a memory that came to him while he was sleeping, quite often, and it never failed to wake him up with a jerk, hand gripping at his heart and wondering why it felt like someone had squeezed it.

It had already been weeks since he had established that he was not fond of Jack, which was established the very moment they spoke personally. Somehow, though, it seemed that Jack was always wherever important things were happening; not, of course, because Jack was important. Hiccup had no problem telling him this. _He was not important_. Jack never tried to correct him.

But then, Jack was sitting cross-legged on his leader's desk, on the far edge but in the very middle so he could hand the man things while he worked. North, that had been the man's name; North who used to speak Russian, a language that came surprisingly easily to Hiccup and many of the other Vikings. Bunny, he had also been there, arms crossed and leaned against the desk next to Jack, staring out the window and not really contributing anything to the conversation. Hiccup was staring at them with his mouth opened; he wasn't sure if he felt disgusted or enthralled. It wasn't like it was the first time something similar had happened. The Guardians were incredibly intimate and shockingly subtle with their physical reassurance. To them, it was just natural. To a Viking, it was downright erotic. Foreplay. Not even the most exclusive mates would touch one another so gently, if they did certainly not in public. And though it was not the first time he had seen it between two Guardians, he was still absolutely blown away when Bunny came into the room late, turned to face the window, and as he raised his hands to cross his arms, lightly stroked Jack's jaw with his fingertip. Jack had hardly reacted. Neither of them acknowledged it; in fact, it was the only movement Bunny had made in the past fifteen minutes.

No, Jack hadn't _not_ reacted, Hiccup realized. He just hadn't reacted _much_. His eyes had closed slowly and he had just barely leaned into the touch, but that was it. They hadn't spoken to one another at all.

Stoick and North didn't seem to notice, and Hiccup wanted to shout at them about how absolutely _inappropriate_ it was, but it was rather normal to the Guardians. When his father discussed it with one of the Vikings, all he had said was that they would have to get used to it.

Hiccup didn't think he ever would.

But, as that had happened and as North was bent over some kind of metal, Stoick was seated in a chair next to his, sitting in a way that was completely expected of him. So why was he constantly receiving looks of such disdain from the tiny lady who seemed to flit and dance about the room, speaking quickly and never once stopping? He'd come to know her as Tooth, because the children went to her when they got hurt, but most commonly from toothache, and she had hair that was bright green even though it was as white as Jack's or North's underneath, peacock feathers braided into the pixie cut and layered over her shoulders. She was sorting big huge scrolls and books into cubbies that pocketed three of the room's walls, making a stack on the edge of the desk of ones she found relevant. But she kept throwing glances over her shoulder at Stoick with disgust, seemingly criticizing how he sat, legs spread steadily and leaned forward with a hand on his own knee; the way a strong and confident man should sit. Did these people not understand that he was a chief? How else was he meant to sit? Certainly not like North, clever man as he was, ankles crossed under his seat as he leaned over his work. Definitely not like Jack, legs crossed and even, back straight and fully attentive. They didn't know any better, Hiccup tried to convince himself.

"It's certain, then, that with your help we can seal off our western edge. It would be most efficient to move into the center of our territory; see? Here." North had taken a map handed to him by Tooth, handing off his little trinket to Jack as he unrolled the paper and traced an area with his finger. Jack handed him a pencil, and he circled where they currently were; edged up in the southeastern corner of their territory. Back then, it had been the only fenced area.

"It will be safer for the children, of course. We had always wanted to be central. We just did not have the people, before."

"We are always willing to help. It would be the least we could do, for what you've given us." Hiccup's mouth snapped shut as he looked at his father. Still, were they that desperate? Hiccup felt that they had reached an agreement; why was Stoick possibly being so formal? Nobody seemed to notice Hiccup's wildly changing expression. He was still standing in the far corner of the room, trying to hide away. He had to keep up this idea that he didn't want to be there, after all.

"Of course, of course, now we have the people power...your people are remarkably strong. I'm certain you're capable of even more than I credit you with."

"We'll certainly try to impress."

"Hah! You have done that already, my friend."

North slapped Stoick's shoulder happily. He seemed to at least somewhat understand physical contact.

"Now, we will need a supervisor for the perimeter, after it'll have been expanded so much…" North pulled on his beard as he thought.

"What about your son?" North gestured grandly to Hiccup. Everyone's attention shifted to him, even Stoick.

"I…uhm..."

Hiccup was considering negatively when he glanced over at Jack, still on the table. His mouth was open and his eyebrows were flying up into his hair.

"I would be honored." Hiccup kept his eyes fixed on Jack's face as it contorted.

But as he shivered in a forest of pine trees, watching that same teen hack down branches, toss them to a pile, run fingers through his hair, pulling loose chunks of bloody ice, scrutinizing his face, he realized that he hadn't been devastated, had he? His lips had pulled up and his eyes had squinted, sure, but... _he had been smiling._

 _He had been happy for Hiccup._


	3. Chapter 3

He was still staring at Jack when the teen had cut down enough branches from the first tree, and started to walk away. He seemed to finally feel Hiccup watching him, because he turned back. His dark brow folded over with confusion at Hiccup's open-mouthed glare.

"Do I have something on my face? What?"

Hiccup shook himself into a scowl, crouching and taking the branches. Dragging them away, he called back at the last second.

"Yeah, ugliness."

"Good one. Almost sounded clever." Jack called back, unaffected, hacking again at a different tree. "Hurry up with the fire. We'll die far faster than I should like without it."

"You'd die far faster than me, scrawny."

"I could still lift you on one arm."

Hiccup didn't doubt it, but he couldn't think of a rebuttal, and he found himself content to try to clear a space for a fire. "No, no, not there. Too close to the river, try over there." Jack pointed out a patch of land where most of the snow had failed to fall. Hiccup scowled, but Jack was already turning away, running his hands through his hair and stacking branches he'd cut down.

Hiccup had seen people make fires before, but they always had some sort of papery tinder, or even gasoline. He cleared away a sizable circle of snow and plopped into the middle of it, pulling his legs up to his chest in the cold. His hands didn't want to work; his fingers could barely close. The sounds of wood cracking and splitting as Jack used his surprisingly powerful swings to bring the material crashing down became the only sounds Hiccup could hear over his freezing breath and the constant, almost calming, wail of the river.

"They've got to have noticed that we're gone by now." Hiccup attempted to break the not-so-silence.

"Of course they have, but they won't know where we've gone. It looks like we traveled a long way downstream." Jack had to raise his voice slightly to be heard as he moved further away. He did not like that he was so loud. Though he still had seen no sign of other life, he was observant.

"Why did this have to happen? I could've been anywhere else by now." Hiccup moaned, a little teepee of sticks threatening to fall again as he stripped it of needles.

"You tell me; you're the one who decided to check the alarm." Jack didn't blame him outright, but he didn't have to. Hiccup knew it was his fault.

"You should have stopped me."

"That only would've made you want to leave more."

Jack was absolutely right, and Hiccup knew it. Instead of snap back an answer, he leaned over his little twig teepee again. His lighter was the old-fashioned kind, where flint was sparked with a tiny cut of steel, so he only needed to click it in order to get sparks to fly. Unfortunately, very few-if any-fell where he wanted them to.

"Argh-just-c'mon, you-ugh!" His fingers, too stiff to hold the lighter open for more than a few seconds anyway, slipped right off the steel. He bit his lip to try hiding his frustration, not wanting to admit that he couldn't do something.

Jack didn't notice; he had already wandered further into the forest, out of earshot but not eyesight, mind number than his skin. What was he doing? How had this happened? He refused himself to dwell on the freezing water, tried to block out any memory of cold. He'd managed to hide his panic from Hiccup for this long, and he was determined to not let it be known. He brought down another good, long branch, and leaned against it in lieu of his staff. He stared at his feet in the snow.

How could he have let this happen? Had he not been kind enough to Hiccup, had he not been distant enough? If he'd succeeded, neither of them would have been out in the cold.

No, he couldn't blame himself. It wasn't his fault. But he refused to blame Hiccup, either, even though he desperately wanted to.

It would've been so easy to hate Hiccup; sometimes, he let himself slip, and he thought that he did. It was directly against his moral standing, but sometimes the man would get in his face until they were almost touching, that stupidly smirking sneer that so often contained a cigarette twitching at his lips, eyes filled with malice and some strange form of delight. It made Jack feel sick to think that he could have possibly done something to make someone hate him so much. He guarded himself against Hiccup as best he could; he knew what would happen if he let the seething Viking too close. It had happened before. It wouldn't happen again.

Jack didn't realize how tightly he had been gripping the branch in his fists until it cracked, and he released it with a hollow grunt of shock. He shook his head a bit, and then much harder, even smacking himself over the cut on the back of his head as he moved away, lifted the blade, and hacked into pine once more.

By the time he dragged back his mountain of sticks, Hiccup had built up a small fire, rapidly feeding it more and more. Jack was so cold that he could no longer feel the cold, and though he knew how dangerous that was, didn't want to go near Hiccup immediately. He sat at the other side of the fire, trying to pretend he wasn't frozen, and began to strip smaller branches holding needles from the larger ones he'd separated from the trees. He felt Hiccup look up, felt his eyes boring into Jack's...chest? He definitely wasn't trying to look at his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Hiccup watched Jack work in a kind of reverence, slowly feeding larger sticks into his fire as his eyes caught on the muscles connecting Jack's arms to his chest as they pulled needles from branches. He made two piles, one of clean branches and one of what he removed, and occasionally stuck his hands into his hair to fluff out slowly melting ice. Finally, he glanced up at Hiccup.

"You haven't been keeping ice out of your hair." He looked back down. Hiccup had to take a moment to register, and another moment to try and adopt an angry attitude.

"So what? You can't tell me what to do, I'm not one of your children."

"You certainly act like one." Hiccup watched Jack still and bite his lip as the words passed it, and then close his eyes and sigh. With seeming reluctance, Jack pushed himself to his feet and circled the fire. He sat down next to Hiccup and grabbed his shoulders, turning him to face Jack, who was crossing his legs and moving closer.

"What're you-"

"-If you want your ears intact, you'll stop fighting me and let me get your hair away from them. I'm not kidding about this; you could lose much worse than just your ears if you let your hair stay wet."

Hiccup fought the urge to practically moan when Jack placed his hands around his ears again. How could he possibly crave someone touching him so softly so badly? Nobody had ever done so before. Jack's hands went to one side of his face, pushing Hiccup's chin so he faced the fire as nimble fingers began to comb through the hair behind his ear. Instinctively, he closed his eyes. He didn't care if Jack made fun of him, though he did hope Jack wouldn't notice. His fingers seemed to barely move, so calmly and quickly braiding the strands of hair together. Hiccup opened his eyes so he wouldn't seem so desperate for the contact, but Jack was hardly paying attention. He was staring past Hiccup with unfocused eyes, his lips hardly opened, brow deep in pensive thought. Steam was rising from his hair and undershorts where he was nearest to the fire, dissipating into the sky like smoke from a cigarette Hiccup desperately wanted. He honestly hated the smell, the taste, of smoke, but the _relief_ was so worth it. Besides, most all the Vikings smoked. Jack finished the braid and ran his fingers along Hiccup's cheekbone, tracing it down to his chin and pushing it to the other side. Hiccup couldn't help it; before he knew what he'd done, he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. Jack made a strange sort of huffing sound, and Hiccup opened his eyes again to meet an almost endearingly raised eyebrow. Immediately, his face fell into a deep scowl, and he looked away further.

"It's cold out." He defended.

"It certainly is." Jack hummed.

He began to sort through the hair on the other side of Hiccup's head, and kicked at his boot.

"You need to take that off, it's just keeping cold water around your foot."

"Why only that one, huh?"

"Please. Everyone knows you're an amputee. There's nothing wrong with that; you're just not good at hiding it."

"Everyone knows?"

"All of us, anyway. It's not like it's a bad thing, really." Jack's fingernail scratched at Hiccup's jaw gently as he worked.

"Though, I'm guessing you weren't born with it."

"N...no, I wasn't." Hiccup's tone, which had started accusatory, lost its vigor like a deflated balloon.

"We've all lost something, in this world."

Jack said quietly, his accent blending the ' _th_ ' sound into a sort of ' _z'._

Hiccup sneered.

"What have you possibly lost?"

Jack fell silent. Hiccup was oddly proud of himself.

But then Jack opened his mouth again.

"I lost my sister. My mother. My entire clan."

He finished the braid and stood up. He drove sticks into the ground, pointing out and away from the fire, hanging their clothes on them. He did not face Hiccup.

"A...aren't you a Guardian?"

Jack began to laugh.

"Have you paid no attention to us? Tell me, what have you noticed of us?" Jack demanded.

"I...you all speak different languages?"

"Exactly! Why would you think we've all been together since the fall?"

"I don't know, maybe because nobody ever bothered to tell me directly?"

"I didn't think we needed to."

"You all have too close of a culture for us to believe anything different!"

"What?" Jack had finished slapping frozen cloth onto sticks and turned around again. Hiccup relished in how his accent spat the word out.

"You...your culture! It's so intimate...so...so…"

"What? I don't- I don't understand. What about us is intimate in some new way to you?"

Jack tilted his head to one side. Steam spilled from his lips, breathing carefully.

"You're all-ugh!" Hiccup jumped up, flushed. He felt a hand on his bicep. Jack was standing only inches from him, as confused as ever.

How could he honestly not understand what Hiccup was talking about?

He'd seen it from day one.

The Vikings were being led through the field of wheat, following Jack and Bunny and their children. They left the field and stumbled onto what used to be a highway, a thing where cars would travel. They'd been useless for travel since before the fall, and were really only spare metal and parts. Their hundreds of feet scuffled against the artificial stone. But Jack, and Bunny, and their children, their feet hardly made a sound.

If any at all.

They practically floated, as if their own weight and the weight of the children that hung on them weighed nothing at all. Bunny loped awkwardly, but it was graceful, and Jack; Jack practically danced. Only the tips of his toes seemed to touch the ground as he moved. His arms were not just filled with children, but also strength, one child on each shoulder and one on one hip, another playfully hanging from his right arm. Bunny had two children on one shoulder, one on the other, one on each hip, and three clinging to his legs. They spoke to them in hushed, happy tones, and the children responded just as calmly and pleasantly. Where was the fighting, the chasing and shouting and tripping and kicking? Where was the hair pulling, where was the fatherly slap on the shoulder? The Vikings had little complaint over two persons of the same gender as mates but for the lack of offspring, but why did they not treat the children like a father would? Where were the boisterous laughs and stories of battle? Why did they not show off their scars with great pride when the children ran their hands over them? Why did the children run their hands over them so gently, instead of just pointing and asking? There was such odd gentility to the way they moved. In some deep part of his mind, Hiccup feared something sinister he couldn't hope to describe.

As soon as the tall man with gray hair rested his hand on the small of the white haired man's back, however, he found that he very suddenly _could_ describe it.

It was described with a gasp and rumble through the crowd as their feet scuffled to a stop. The children and two men turned to look at them quizzically. Everyone was fixated on the small touch, as gentle and soothing as something Hiccup had never seen before. Not even a proud mother and her newly-crying infant could have shared something so tender.

"Wot? Wot's tha matta?" Bunny's accent was so thick that he could hardly be understood. One child who hadn't been connected to either parent slowly slid her hand around Jack's thumb, backing away from the anxious group.

"Is something the matter?" Jack repeated his partner, eyes darting from one face to the next. He turned more and Bunny's hand left his spine as his eyes locked onto Hiccup's. The offense gone, the Vikings fell to whispering again. For the first time, they saw a Guardian go on the defense, Bunny lifting the back of his shirt and drawing out a curved piece of wood, uneasy. Jack never glanced over, but he had to have sensed it somehow, for he reached out, slender fingertips hardly brushing Bunny's wrist as he murmured something quietly. The man's breath hitched in his chest and Jack glanced up to him. They did not break eye contact until Bunny put the boomerang away again.

"It's not far," Jack called to the group, eyes following his words as he tossed his head. "Do not worry." He finished carefully, eyes confused and concerned. Bunny turned and began to walk again, adjusting the child on his left hip, and Jack followed.

As soon as their backs were turned, the quiet murmuring began.

 _Why did he do that? In front of children?! What kind of people have we come across?!_

Hiccup was still staring at the small of Jack's back, where Bunny's hand had been. Those around him were livid, shocked at the absolutely appalling display.

Jack was right; the goal was not far, and it was not even a mile before they turned off the paved road and began to see signs of surviving civilization. Mostly, there were cleared spaces that had been staked off, and in the distance the roofs of buildings could just barely be seen. The buildings were hidden by tall, thin trees with white bark and red leaves, reaching up into the sky like bloody fingers seeking help. It was just in front of one of the stakes that the children fell off of Jack and he stepped up to it, standing on one foot on top of it as if his own weight was nothing. He tilted his head back slightly and began to sing, a haunting melody.

" _Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine…"_

Hiccup did not hear the rest. Almost as soon as he had begun speaking, a long, thick, luminescent, incredibly heavy and wide cut of rope dropped from the roof of the nearest, thickest tree. A figure came rappelling down it, and as her feet hit the ground Hiccup realized that she was connected to the thick rope by the back of her head.

She was barefoot too, with wide, green, round eyes and a short and slim figure, clothed in a silky purple blouse tucked into parachuted pants of a pale pink that was almost white. In the clasps of her shirt and on the gold buttons of her pants, a bright sun appliqué was pressed into the metal. She was a fair amount brighter than the men and their children- a surrogate, perhaps?- and seemed less wary of the huge group of beastly people behind them. She seemed much more concerned with her own people.

Jack jumped from the small stake to the ground, and she leapt forward with a joyful cry. The little ones flooded the space between their adults as the woman ran into Jack's arms and they hugged tightly with wide smiles. Quickly, they pressed their faces together on each side, kissing one another's cheeks twice before she let of Jack and leapt into Bunny similarly, kissing just as tenderly.

Hiccup's people didn't even try to contain their cries of disgust and panic.

The Guardians immediately sprang to action. The children herded together, the shorter ones crouching behind the legs of their older siblings, spreading their legs and crouching back in a stout defensive position. Their caretakers swung into a triangle around them, the woman who they later learned to call 'Rapunzel' swinging her braided hair into a half-whip, Jack low to the ground with his staff sideways across his chest and ready to spring, Bunny as tall as he could make himself with sharply bladed boomerangs in each hand. They surveyed the area around them with expertly adept eyes, but Jack was staring right at Hiccup, who couldn't wipe the look of horror off his face. He cocked his head to the side and rose slowly.

" _Qu'est-ce que c'est_?" He said softly.

"What is it?" Bunny repeated in common, turning and following Jack's lead, lowering but not stowing his weapons.

They could not find the words to tell them.


End file.
